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Top House Dem asks Equifax rivals about security measures after record breach

A top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee asked Equifax’s competitors on Wednesday whether they’ve taken steps to prevent a similar security breach.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) asked the CEOs of credit reporting agencies TransUnion and Experian about their security measures after hackers accessed the personal financial information of more than 140 million United States individuals stored by Equifax.

“Because of the nature of the information that was stolen — largely Social Security numbers and birth dates, which are both critical and unchangeable for consumers — criminals could be using this information to steal consumers’ identity for years to come,” Maloney said.

Maloney asked the CEOs what steps they’ve taken to secure their data storage systems after the breach was reported last week, and whether they use the Apache Struts software the hackers reportedly exploited. TransUnion said it has used the Struts software, and Apache reportedly issued security updates for Struts in March, but Equifax did not download the patches.

Maloney asked whether TransUnion and Experian downloaded the security updates, and whether they’ve found similar breaches of customer information.